The Sims 3 on OSX Lion

RoaringApps.com is reporting problems with running TS3 in the new OS which is due for release imminently. Apparently a 3rd party program is needed in order for it to run smoothly. Don’t expect a patch from EA over this anytime soon, or ever.

I’ll be updating to Lion as soon as it comes out so I’ll keep you all informed. Sod The Sims 3, I’m not sacrificing a great new operating system for a game 😉

Yeah I know. I’m not too worried about losing my TS3 stuff because I did the clean install last week, and only made one house since, although it would be a bit annoying. No doubt EA aren’t even aware that there’s a new Mac OS coming out 😛

What I don’t understand is that they talk about some 3rd party programme but there’s no mention of what programme. The comments say something about a cache cleaner app, but what is this supposed to do or which of the functions of (Lion) Cache Cleaner would be required, respectively?

I was puzzled about that too. They must have isolated what the problem is but don’t mention the actual fix. I really hope it isn’t the usual case of having to uninstall and reinstall – I did that last week 😦

Well, isn’t that what every tech support employee at EA will ask you to do anyway – after you’ve sent them your dxdiag, of course;) ? Because reinstalling is a major component of gameplay, you know.
But if it’s only clearing your caches, I guess, you can do that yourself. Every Cider game does indeed place files in username/Library/Caches in addition to Preferences but I’m still uncertain about what these actually do. In the case of Sims they only get updated when I connect to EA via the Launcher, so they seem to be some means of tracking my intercourse with EA, so-to-speak.
The problem might be hidden files then, and there sure must be some. In one of my reinstalls I forgot to clear out everything Sims related in Library and was surprised that my computer already knew every CD key I had been asked to enter.
Anyway when I checked this Cache Cleaner app I found several forum posts that preferred an app called Macjack. Be that as it may this RoaringApps site is still a bit vague and only time will tell what works and what not.

With regards to the hidden files and your computer knowing the serial keys, you can put a command line into Terminal to find your serial keys. I assumed that they would be deleted when you uninstalled the game but maybe they are deeply buried somewhere so they stay there? I know that they are kept in the C: drive, which of course we don’t have, but maybe Cider/Transgaming doesn’t completely delete everything?

There are some files you can safely delete from TS3 folder in Documents because they rebuild themselves each time you launch the game – hopefully these are the ones they are talking about at RoaringApps? I can’t remember what they are but I have it on a Stickie somewhere, I’ll hunt around for it. As soon as Lion is out I’m installing it and I’ll post on here with the results 🙂

“EA sure do like checking up on us, did you see my blog post about all the info they collect from us just when we visit the TS3 site?” Yes, and I am sure that this is the main reason why they want to switch to digital download only and the next step will be to require you to be online in order to play. I already find this EADM on my Windows partition overly offensive.

But back on topic, my assumption is that the files to be cleared would be higher up in the hierarchy somewhere in the system files of your user account. Just have a look at all those com.transgaming.xxxx folders in username/Library/Caches

But I don’t know enough of it and Terminal is still a mystery for me. I grew up with MacOs7-9 and X is really the appropriate name for this OS when it comes to what I understand about it.

I know what you mean when it comes to EADM. I had to install it when I played Dragon Age (which I found disappointing btw) because of the DLC. Every time I wanted to play there was a 50/50 chance that I suddenly didn’t own the DLC anymore, rendering the safe unusable, and I had to constantly use Task Manager to start a process within the game because it kept forgetting that it should fire up when I pressed Play. Now I forgot what this task was and so I uninstalled DA and do not regret it. I should have taken this as an omen for the other EA game that is TS. But, you know, we’re all sheep 🙂
TS1 was, btw, one of the reasons why I still have Leopard on my MBP, because I used to play it until 2009 when TS3 was released. I was too worried that Snow Leopard might render it unusable like Leopard did with another game I used to play.

Awww, that’s the exact same spec iMac I have although mine’s the 20″ 🙂 I’m reluctant to install Lion on it because of the Boot Camp partition but I think I’ll have a go tonight, I’ll just clone the Windows side first. I’ll let you know how I get on. Do you have any CC or mods?

Oh ok. When you uninstall using the TS3 uninstall option it doesn’t get rid of all the Preference files so you have to go into the folder and delete them manually:

Finder > Preferences > The Sims 3 Preferences

There’s also a ton of Transgaming (Cider) files in the Preferences folder too. But if you tried on your brother’s MBP and he’s never had it previously installed then I have no idea. If he has the 15″ or 17″ go into System Preferences > Energy Saver and untick the ‘automatic graphics switching’ option so it’s using the dedicated graphics card as default. Thom_and_Hollie over on the TS3 forums switched to the dedicated card and it solved their problem, but they were on the same generation MBP as me.

As per my latest blog entry, EA have apparently confirmed that Lion is not compatible with TS3….. Still doesn’t explain why some of us can play and others can’t though 😦

In Lion the user library files are now hidden because so many people manage to screw up their Macs by deleting the wrong files. You need to make sure you’re in Finder, hold down Alt and click Go in the menu bar. The Library files will now appear. Go to Preferences > The Sims 3 Preferences. The folder names in there will all look a bit Windows-ish with their names. You can delete the whole folder. After you’ve done that you can delete the files in the main Preferences folder that begin with com.transgaming. Only do this if you want to delete all TS3 stuff before a clean install though.

No problem 😀 Two people have now had confirmation from EA that TS3 is not compatible with Lion. EA’s answer? Go back to using Snow Leopard………… Such a lame answer considering some people are managing to play fine.

Yay! Don’t get your hopes up yet though. Someone over on the forums did that but as soon as they started installing and patching it stopped again. Keep loading the game after each EP and SP to check then patch, check again, then install. You’ll have to patch at some point because later EPs won’t work. Fingers crossed 😉

After you’ve installed WA it will probably tell you there’s a patch, just say no and see what happens. I think it may be a graphics issue. I just switched my MBP from the dedicated to integrated graphics card and the game froze twice……

What a nightmare! Try patching and then running the game again. If it doesn’t work, I don’t know but I really admire your persistence 😀 I’ve no idea why the uninstaller isn’t there, never heard of that before.

There is one more thing you could try if you uninstall again. Set up a new user account on your Mac with admin rights and install the game in that account.

I’m sure it’s the graphics card. All the people on the thread I started who can’t play have the same graphics cards 😦 Apple must have updated the drivers for it for Lion. I doubt EA will do anything, they never do. I’m sorry KS929.

Apple may update the drivers but people need to tell them the problem first. You could ring Applecare just to tell them I guess.

I may be wrong but it’s looking like that graphics card is the problem 😦 It’s the common factor in that thread over at TS3. Oh and the M after the 9400 just means it’s a mobile chipset as opposed to a desktop one.

It’s ok 🙂 I appreciate the help… I wish EA or Apple will respond to this problem soon. I can wait to play, as long as I don’t have to switch back to Snow Leopard :D… I mean, I like Snow Leopard, but I like Lion better lol

Cider is technology that converts DirectX functions and remaps them to OpenGL. DirectX is a Microsoft technology that most games are coded with. The problem is that of course DirectX is only for Windows.

OpenGL however is cross platform for the most part but game developers don’t code in it because they think there are better numbers of Windows users… except when you factor in iPad, iPhone, iPod, Mac OS X, PS3, Wii the numbers actually start to stack in favour of OpenGL but large game companies are idiots and too blind to see this.

Anyway back to the issue at hand. Apple has done some major reworking of OpenGL support in Mac OS X using it seems OpenGL 3.2. I would expect that this change is what is causing The Sims to spit the dummy although many games run fine it’s all up to the developers to implement it properly.

What this means is that it’s either up to Transgaming to update Cider or EA to update calls to Cider.

Incidentally I would expect that many of these issues would disappear if EA actually got some talent and had programmers that knew how to write decent games in OpenGL natively then we wouldn’t need an extra layer of complexity because it would actually run natively on the Mac not through what is essentially a virtual machine in much the same way Java works.

That would make sense Darryn, and I’ve wondered if indeed it is a Cider problem. But it wouldn’t explain why some of us are managing to play TS3 with no problems (apart from the usual EA crap), yet others can’t. I even switched from the Nvidia GeoForce 9600 to the 9400 and sure enough my game crashed. As soon as I switched back to the 9600 it worked fine again.

I don’t understand why EA decided to wrap it in Cider when Apsyr managed to do a decent job with TS2 and TS1. And I agree with you wholeheartedly about EA getting decent programmers. Although I suspect they probably are good, they just aren’t given enough time and money to do the job well.